Tag Archives: Persecution

News

500 Muslim scholars endorse murder of Pakistani governor who opposed blasphemy laws

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Map of Middle East and Asia
Map of Middle East and Asia

From McClatchy. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

The increasing radicalization of Pakistani society was laid bare Wednesday when the nation’s mainstream religious organizations applauded the murder of provincial governor Salman Taseer earlier this week, while his killer was showered with rose petals as he appeared in court.

Taseer, 66, the governor of Punjab, the country’s most heavily populated province, was assassinated Tuesday by one of his police bodyguards after Taseer had campaigned to ease Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Religious groups threatened to kill others who questioned the blasphemy statute, which is designed to protect Islam and the Prophet Muhammad from “insult.”

Pakistan is a key partner for the U.S. in the global fight against terrorism but waves of fundamentalism have produced an increasingly intolerant and anti-American country, making the alliance with Washington hugely unpopular.

Life Site News explains more.

Excerpt:

In November a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to be executed under the law for having defended her faith from insults by Muslims in the same state.

[…]While the Pakistani government denounced the murder, a group of 500 Muslim scholars issued an explicit statement endorsing the killing of Taseer. During initial court hearings Qadri was kissed and showered with flower petals by numerous supporters.

“We pay rich tributes and salute the bravery, valor and faith of Mumtaz Qadri,” declared the Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat group in a statement issued to the press. They added that “there should be no expression of grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the Prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy.”

Extremist Islamic groups have held a national strike to protest the proposed repeal of the law, even though Pakistan’s ruling party has renounced plans to do so.  The groups have also demanded the execution of Bibi, who was arrested in 2009 after defending her faith against Muslim women who she said were taunting her for her Christianity. She denies having insulted Mohammed.

Meanwhile, Iran is rounding up Christian leaders.

Excerpt:

Iranian state television said Wednesday that leaders of the country’s Christian minority have been arrested and accused of spreading a hard-line version of their faith.

The report did not give the number of people arrested. The group was promoting hard-line Christian views at cultural gatherings with the support of Britain, the TV reported, quoting Tehran Governor Morteza Tamadon. It did not elaborate.

Tamadon was quoted as calling the group “a corrupt and deviant current.”

A website of Iran’s political opposition reported that 60 Christians have been arrested since Christmas, including a priest taken into custody on Friday.

The Sahamnews.org website said the priest, Leonard Keshishian, was summoned by security authorities in the central city of Isfahan and arrested.

It gave no further details or a reason for the arrests.

Where is Obama? Does he have anything to say about this? Shouldn’t the supposed leader of the free world have something to say about this?

Maybe he is too busy playing golf… in only TWO YEARS he has played twice as many rounds of golf as George W. Bush played in EIGHT YEARS.

News

What if Christians were treated like Muslims and vice versa?

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ECM found this neat article in Human Events, a conservative news magazine.

Excerpt:

If Christians were treated like Muslims, conspicuous Christianity would be celebrated by our elites as a sign of our diversity and open-mindedness, not disparaged as an embarrassment, a nuisance and a breach of the law.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, our students would be taught a white-washed version of Christian history, with the troubling bits miscast or omitted from textbooks and lesson plans.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, if an evangelical Christian committed an evil act in the name of his faith, he would be portrayed in the media as a deviation from, not a personification of, the Gospel message. Meanwhile, our political and media elites would hasten to assure the public that evangelical Christianity is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of evangelical Christians do not support terrorism.

[…]If Christianity were treated like Islam, Christmas and Easter would be publicly celebrated for what they are — the signature events of Christianity, marking the birth and the death and Resurrection of Christ — not stripped of all their theological meaning and transformed into secular holidays devoted to crass consumerism.

If Christians were treated like Muslims, NASA would be tasked with reaching out to Christians and recognizing their faith’s profound achievements and contributions to science, math and engineering, instead of being told to make Muslims feel good about their rather meager scientific accomplishments.

[…]If Christians were treated like Muslims in America, amusement parks would celebrate “Christian Family Day,” (Six Flags recently celebrated “Muslim Family Day”), and Christians would be asked to embrace, not set aside, their religious convictions at the door when they entered the public square. Meanwhile, Muslim imams, not Christian pastors, would fear hate crimes lawsuits for preaching orthodox views of sexuality and sin.

This is a pretty clever article, and I wish I had written it.

Non-Christian sometimes ask me whether I believe in Hell and whether I think that they are going there. And the answer is YES, I do believe in Hell, and YES, they are going there. And one of the reasons why they are going there to roast for an eternity (oh yes, I have the traditional view of Hell) is because of the way that people treat Christians in the here and now. I am talking about in the university, in the the news media, and in Hollywood. Christians always seem to be the only group that you can make feel bad for what they believe. I think that this factor will play a significant part in the degree of punishment that non-Christians get in the afterlife. (And that doesn’t mean that I’m going to treat them people badly because my goal is to persuade people and that means being nice to them).

Here’s a tip for non-Christians who read my blog. You can fight with Christians all you like about whether Christianity is true, and no harm done. But whatever you do, do not be found on that day guilty of making us feel bad about our faith. Do not make it harder for us to be who we are. Do not be one of the people who pressures us to keep silent about what we believe. I understand that non-Christians do not like the things we do, like chastity and sobriety and being pro-life and pro-marriage. Those are good things that prevent harm and evil, and they should not be opposed.

News

MUST-READ: Why Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world

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A very fine article from the normally ultra-liberal Toronto Star. (H/T Jojo)

Excerpt:

Virtually every human rights group and Western government agency that monitors the plight of Christians worldwide arrives at more or less the same conclusion: Between 200 million and 230 million of them face daily threats of murder, beating, imprisonment and torture, and a further 350 to 400 million encounter discrimination in areas such as jobs and housing. A conservative estimate of the number of Christians killed for their faith each year is somewhere around 150,000.

Christians are “the largest single group in the world which is being denied human rights on the basis of their faith,” the World Evangelical Alliance has noted.

In a report to a conference on Christian persecution hosted by the European Parliament last month, the U.S. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life put it this way: while Muslims and Jews worldwide and Baha’is in Iran certainly suffer too, Christians were “harassed” by government factors in 102 countries and by social factors, such as mob rule, in 101 countries.

“Altogether, Christians faced some form of harassment in two-thirds of all countries,” or 133 nations, the report said. Muslims also face “substantial” harassment, the Pew report found, but in fewer countries.

Christians face harassment in more countries “than any other religious group,” a Pew Forum spokesperson told the Star.

Put in sharper focus, “at least” 75 per cent of all religious persecution in the world is directed against Christians, the conference was told.

The euphemistic term “harassment” encompasses vigilante and terrorist attacks against Christians in more than a dozen Muslim countries. In Sudan, an estimated 1.5 million Christians have been murdered by the Islamic Janjaweed militia, including some who were crucified. In Nigeria, 12 states have introduced sharia law. Thousands of Christians were killed in the ensuing violence.

In Saudi Arabia, the only faith permitted by law is Islam. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking alcohol, blaspheming or owning religious artifacts.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians are still reeling from a church attack last January in which eight worshippers were killed. “The situation is deteriorating and is very tense,” Sam Fanous, a leader of Toronto’s Coptic community, told the Star from Cairo. He said that after Friday Muslim prayers, streets fill with anti-Coptic protests.

In historically tolerant Indonesia, Islamic militias have bombed churches in majority Christian regions and killed or forcibly converted thousands.

China, meantime, continues to shutter “underground” churches and ship pastors to prison.

Read the whole thing. This is one-stop shopping on the persecution issue, and the sources are unimpeachable. Send it to your friends.